Research:Have a good look at who your competition will be, what are they good at, what do they do well, what can you do better.

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Values:Write down your new businesses core values and share them with everyone involved with the business, friends and family. This will give you focus and the conviction to stand behind them the values, and help them to become real. These core brand values will then need to be reflected in your branding.

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Choosing a name:Select the name for your new business carefully, does it reflect your target market, your service offerings, your core values and even the personality of the business.

Google it, look for similar names and try to find a name that is unique. It’s also very important that the domain names are available, as that can cause problems further down the line.

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Look and feel:What type of brands do you admire and why? - Not just in your market but all sectors, what do you like about them, is it the way they communicate with their target audience, the way their branding looks and feels? Is it the avenues of communication that they use, online, offline, social media etc.

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Collaborate with a designer:Choose a designer carefully, the best ones are the ones who can design a logo, that’s a given, they should ask the right questions, be passionate about what you are trying to do with your business and be open to collaborate on your branding project with you, we believe that the best branding projects are the ones where the clients are fully involved, and the end result isn’t template based, or prescribed by the designer in “their style”, but it’s designed to be bespoke for that business, it then feels right, the client loves it and is proud to be represented by the brand identity.

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Extended branding:Thinking further than just the logo what colours, images, fonts, and even messages/phrases best suit your business? It’s a good idea to think about these elements even at an early stage, even if not all of them are put into action straight away. It can help with future advertising, marketing and even recruitment, as everyone involved in the business has a clear visual image of what the business looks like.

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Avoid trends:Make sure that you choose a company name and a logo that matches the core values that you have set for the business, it’s personality, it’s services and it’s target market, so avoid trends at all costs, this means avoid creating choosing a name that sounds like or is similar to a competitors or even one that sounds “cool”. Likewise for the style of our logo, avoid choosing a logo that ’fits’ within a particular market, or even looks similar to a competitor, this will be counter-productive.

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